FACE THE MUSIC

The year 2014 is  one of the worst years for advertising in Kenya.
Where did all the creativity go?.

One particular campaign is extremley poor in every form, manner and kind

.
For this campaign Airtel has two T.V Commercials.The first one is of a lady in the office and tries her luck at singing to win a chance to win a trip to be with Akon and get a recording deal.

 Airtel is mocking Kenyan talent, the lyrics which this lady sings are so horrible,"unataka number yangu boy,nina taka number yako girl."now here comes the worst part of this commercial finishes by saying Yeah believing she has nailed it.The lady cannot sing to save her life.

Now the second advert is equally worst.A Chef comes in and starts singing a jaguar song as he cooks.They are already two problems 1.Jaguar cannot sing.2.The chef cannot sing, my advice stick to cooking.

Airtel is mocking kenyan talent.The concept behind the campaign is for one to sing and win a trip to be a trace music star with AKON. Yes Akon is the ambassador.

Here are some facts for Airtel.

1.Every one can sing
2.Not every one can  sing exceptionally well.
3.It is for the above reason not every one should sing.
4.A nice singing voice is a talent a gift which few poses on this planet.
5.For the best results talent is harnessed and nutured to produce perfection.
6.Someone singing through the phone is not an accurate basis to judge a competitors vocal range and ability Akon knows this.Super stars practice fours hours days and years.Trace knows this. Kindly Trace do not insult our intelligence and talent.Hold better and more quality competitions.  
7.A better way to do this competition is actually through auditions.
8.Kenyans can sing however not all Kenyans can sing exceptionally well.
9 Airtel if you want to fuse with music, then open Airtel Music Academy.

BEYOND BLACK

"It  doesn't matter if you are black or white " these are the words of Micheal Jackson.
However according to Guinness it does.
Their  global campaign is # MADE OF MORE.

Now their African campaign # MADE OF BLACK

The African Made of black comes with a commercial which shows black Africans watching black football in a stadium full of black Africans and black football players.
The next scene is a black African man putting on red paint on his face to go and support his black football team.
Guinness African campaign is not success by any measure with an undertone of racism.
While the world is # Made of More ,Africa is #Made of black.

Guinness is black that is a fact. Africans are black.
Another fact is that AFRICANS DO NOT DRINK GUINNESS BECAUSE IT IS BLACK.THEY DRINK IT BECAUSE IT IS A NICE BREW. # CHOOSE BLACK is the campaign they are running as they show English premiere league football matches. The campaign will not make Africans drink more Guinness.

  Guinness rise above color.
 Color has nothing to do with it.Should Africans not drink Milk because it is White.
.#Made of black is a poor thought out campaign.
 If they were going for inspiration then #Made of more is a good campaign.

ART ATTACK

There are messages that are every advert portrays. The obvious, immediately noticeable ones, which are usually whatever the advert is advertising; the product. Then there are subliminal messages. A case in point is the Airtel TV commercial Shikisha Story.

The main point of the advert is that the more you talk the more free airtime points you get. The script goes, a young man calls his mother and tells her that he wants to be a rapper. This is how he knows to get free talk time, because as soon as he says that, his mother goes into a frenzy. He later says that he is quitting his job to egg her on. The parents are in such a panic and even show up to his house in the middle of the night.

This commercial brings out issues on how Kenyan parents view The Arts; the arts being Art Craft and Music - yes I hail from that glorious era. I did all these 3 subjects in primary school and even then, they did not take them seriously - so much so that they were eliminated from the syllabus.

In the TV commercial the boy mentions that he wants to be a rapper. His mother immediately flips out; she says there is no way he can do that after they took him to school, what is he doing, etc. So basically, the advertisement is telling kids to yes, get more talk time for talking longer, but also - if you go to school, please don't waste your parents' money and become a rapper.

This is only one example - but we all know Kenyan parents think like this. Art is a failure, not a failsafe, to that generation. Forget about the fact that art just gave Okwiri Oduor, winner of the Caine Prize, 1.5 MILLION shillings. Forget that off the top of anyone's head, people can name artists IN KENYA who are LIVING off their art- whether musicians or rappers or poets or writers or photographers (Aaron Rimbui. Eric Wainaina. Kato Change. Victor Peace. Mark Kiarie. Owuor Arunga. Juliani. Nonini. DNG. DJ Stylz. DJ Pinye. Ian Mbugua...)

Speaking of Lupita Nyong'o, her win of the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress was a turning point for how Kenyan parents view the Arts. Suddenly there was a perfect poster child for every Kenyan child! A KENYAN actress. On an INTERNATIONAL stage. Winning an Oscar. That meant it could be done! Granted, people may say, oh, she was an MP's daughter etc. But not all successful artists in our country are MP's children. The point is not where she came from; the point is that it was done. And that there is a way to do it - and she showed it to us.

The mentality is slowly changing. In time we will fully embrace art as a profession, and a logical career, and something to be respected and aspire to. One day we will have art and music school all over Kenya.

I believe Airtel should sponsor more Art Programs, for the simple reason that the sciences are not everything. Not everyone is going to be a doctor - and YES. Some people want to be rappers. AND THAT IS OK.

Life is painful. It has thorns, like the stem of a rose. Culture and art are the roses that bloom on the stem. The flower is yourself, your humanity. Art is the liberation of the humanity inside yourself.” 
― Daisaku Ikeda

DRIVING FOOTBALL

The 2014 World Cup is over; Germany are the winners -

- and we have to wait for another four years for another World Cup.

True soccer lovers can go back to their local football leagues. I  know football fans can't wait for the most watched football league in Kenya: the English Premier League.

The English Premier League starts on 16th of August. The opening match is Manchester United vs. Swansea. For this season Manchester United has a new Drive, so to speak. American car marker Chevrolet has sponsored Man -U to the tune of $560 million.

With this move, Chevrolet has made its intention clear: we are going global. Even here in Kenya there are more and more Chevys on the roads. I feel like this is a very good move for Chevrolet. For a very long time American vehicles were only designed for American roads and could not fit on European and African roads. On top of that, they were fuel guzzlers. With the global campaign Chevrolet has adapted. Building new cars for new markets will surely increase profits and, more importantly, chances of survival.

SURETY

Bila kupoteza muda wacha ni seme bloggi la leo ni la kusema tangazo (advertisement) la M-shwari si shwari.
Kiswahili is really hard. It took me a slow 15 minutes to write the above sentence.

Today I am on Safaricom's case; rather, their new account known as M-shwari.

M-shwari is a brilliant concept. It is a bank account in your mobile phone. It allows you to save money, borrow money at overdraft (more money than your actual account balance) and, the best feature, at a low interest rate compared to other financial institutions.

I believe M-shwari should get a lot of awards. Through M-shwari, one can save without standing in long queues. Another huge issue it has tackled is the accesibility to loans for the common mwananchi, as well as the enlightenment of the saving culture to the masses. In time, I believe it should be opened up for children as well. They are, after all, the future.

There is only one major problem with it; its latest TV commercial it is not informative. I believe a good advert can be in Chinese and I will still understand it.The TV commercial target market was the youth.but it could well be mistaken for a music video; it's funky and hyped. And all we see...is funk and hype. We don't know details about the product...except that there's a chick in the video buys a laptop in the end. Being simple is best. It touches more hearts and more minds. There is a place for hype, yes, but what is the point if the message is not communicated? The excitable 'cool dude' who jumps out of the limousine is supposed to be a representation of today's average young person; to me, this is false.

This TV commercial is ambiguous.Yes, the youth are full of energy but not all of them are searching for the limelight.

TRANSFORMATIVE MARKETING

There have been many product placements in TV series. Product placement as a marketing tool has gone a notch higher; for a while, marketing has elevated to a level which makes products prominent in Hollywood movies.The latest - and most glaringly obvious - instance is from the movie Transformers 4: Age of Extinction.

ALERT: SPOILERS AHEAD

In the first few scenes, there is an interstellar Autobot bounty hunter by the name of Lockdown. He is ruthless and vicious; and, he turns into - yes - a Lamborghini Aventador. The car matches the character of Lockdown; beastly and basically made up of raw power.

The product that got the lion's share of the marketing is the car company CHEVROLET. Mark Wahlberg drives a Chevrolet in the very first scene as he goes to his house. They are not interested in being discreet; they are interested in being direct. Also, at some point in the movie, the main characters are rescued by someone else driving a Chevy Sonic rally car.

 Bumble Bee transforms from a 1967 Mr. Vegance Camaro -

to a 2014 Camaro Concept car.

There are a host of other conveniently placed products; at some point, the camera focuses on a device to make music; that morphs into a close up shot of the pill, by Beats by Dre.

An accident happens with a car that is coincidentally, of course, carrying bottles of Bud Light.

Wahlberg, in the middle of an alien invasion, takes this time to take a sip of this cool, refreshing American drink (about as believable as Brad Pitt in World War Z drinking a Pepsi after figuring out how to safely walk through a battering ram of zombies).

When mayhem is being wrought in the city, Bumblebee crashes into a Victoria's Secret bus -

- and lands in Tom Ford wall.

Please note that all these products are American; this is no country (movie) for Guinness or Stoned Cherrie.

But the biggest product placement has to be that of the AMERICAN FLAG.

In the trailer alone, the American flag is waving in the background a minimum of 10 times.

10 flags...

...in 2 and a half minutes.

All through the movie, the flag is depicted as a central part of life; when a character dies, the only thing that is left of him is the flag; when the aliens are invading, they pass over the flag; and so on, and so forth.

Even more 'climatic', the pinnacle point is where Wahlberg overcomes a trained CIA agent in CHINA, by throwing an AMERICAN FOOTBALL at him -

- which causes him to lose his balance and Wahlberg empowers him.

Even in China, America wins. GOD BLESS MARKETING - SORRY, GOD BLESS AMERICA.

AN APPLE A DAY KEEPS THE DOCTOR AWAY

What's in a name? Is it prestige? Is it heritage, or is it a profession?

The name in question is Andre Romelle Young a.k.a. Dr.Dre.

The world has witnessed the metarmophosis of Dr. Dre from a musician to a music producer to a million- sorry, billionaire.

Dr. Dre produced his own head phones known as 'Beats by Dre', logic being the world would buy his headphones because he designed them from a music producer's perspective, sense of hearing, and thus know that it will be of superior sound quality. But most of all, they would buy it for the name.

The world was very receptive to Beats by Dre, so much so that they are currently the number one bestselling set in the United States of America , the UK, France, Germany, South Korea and Singapore. The marketing strategy is simple and powerful.Their main candidates for their brand ambassadors are musicians and athletes - people everyone looks up to as demigods, and who will buy something because of their name; the fundamental pillar of endorsement.

For the 2014 FIFA World Cup, their campaign 'THE GAME BEFORE THE GAME' is brilliant.

They choose Brazilian football star Neymar Jr. to carry the message.They choose Portuguese as the language of choice which is a break from the norm, implying they have a larger audience. The advert is a phone call between Neymar Jr. and his father, his pre-game ritual, before any match. The advert is superb; it features may familiar faces, and use of a familiar language as well as setting and general loyalty to the sport evokes multiple layers of emotional attachment and appreciation; one, a man and his father, and two, a man and his game.

Apple recently purchased Beats by Dre  for 3.2 billion dollars. It's a good brand, and it's made a good name for itself. So once again...what's in a name?

Everything.

They've said it from the beginning of time; an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Guess an Apple is what it took to keep Dr. Dre away?

Coke Comet

As marketers, our job involves always looking for the new next frontier. We try to market a brand so well that it touches and the lives of others; to come up with concepts which will shape the life of a child to only buy that brand till she/he is an adult.
To make an advert so good that the brand is a family member if not your closest friend!

There are very rare moments when brands make great, heart warming ads.
 
Halley's Comet is visible to humans in the sky once every 75 years. It is a preternatural spectacle that words simply cannot describe.

The Coca Cola Comet has just been sighted in their campaign HELLO HAPPINESS...and yes, words cannot describe the brilliance of the concept and the magnificence of the execution. Of course, it also helps that the emotional aspect of the ad is so relatable, and so deeply, intensely emotional. What better way to make Coke a part of the family than family itself?
The ad shows how Coke bottle tops act as currency for workers far from their loved ones making phone calls that would otherwise be at least a sixth of their daily income.

With the HELLO HAPPINESS campaign, they have pushed the limit past the sky; with Coke's comet, it's stratospheric.